SQL Server tips and experiences dedicated to my twin daughters.

More often than not, there is a myth in the developer community that Microsoft SQL Server does not provide the debugging abilities that other IDEs provide. Even SQL Server 2000 provided basic debugging ability. Starting Microsoft SQL Server 2005, the product now comes with it’s own Management Studio, which is based upon Microsoft’s renowned IDE – the Visual Studio. Therefore, the most common debugging abilities come out of the box for SQL Server – enough to give application developers a run for their money!

The upcoming, SQL Server 2012 takes debugging a step further – bringing conditional breakpoints, data-tips and what have you. Let’s have a look at some of the basic debugging options that are available to us in SSMS.

NOTE: For T-SQL Debugging, connecting the Transact-SQL editor to the server with a login having the sysadmin fixed server role is not sufficient; the Windows login of the Visual Studio user must also be a member of the sysadmin fixed server role on that instance of SQL Server.

Which objects can be debugged?

All commonly used objects within SQL Server can be debugged. These include, but are not limited to:

Ad-hoc queries

Stored procedures

Triggers

The way to debug any of these objects is same as Visual Studio.

Start debugging – F10

Step into an object – F11

We will keep things simple for this session, and raise the bar as we go along.

Debugging in SQL 2012 – Breakpoints

Test Script for this session

We will debug the following script in this session on SQL 11 (“Denali”) CTP03. It is a very simple script that loops through for 20 iterations.

Creating Conditional Breakpoints & Labeling them

One of the major features that was missing in the earlier versions of SSMS was the ability to have conditional breakpoints. In SSMS for Denali, conditional break-pointing is possible. To explore it’s features, let’s start debugging by pressing the F10 key as high-lighted in the Hands-On session. I would re-iterate that debugging in SSMS is not at all different than debugging in VS2010.

To demonstrate the fact, let’s place a breakpoint near the line for “Hello World!”. We will make this a conditional breakpoint, to break only if the value of the counter hits 10.

Hit F9 to setup the breakpoint on the desired line

Note that the information in the “Breakpoint” window is non-descriptive. Let’s correct that first

Right-click on the breakpoint, and choose “Edit Labels”

In the “Edit Labels” window, type in a descriptive detail and click “Add”

If pre-existing, you can choose one if you like

On clicking “OK”, notice that the breakpoint can now be identified easily amongst a pile of breakpoints

Now, right-click on the breakpoint and go to “Condition”

Add the required expression as a condition and click “OK”

Notice that in both the “Breakpoints” window & editor window, the breakpoint symbol now has a little "plus (+) sign in it

Let’s create a “Hit Count” based breakpoint for the second line

For the test, let’s set this breakpoint to hit at intervals in multiples of 4 – at 4, 8, 12,16 & 20.

Hit OK once done to set the breakpoint

The Breakpoints window would look like the one in the screenshot

Hit “Alt + F5” to run through the sample code. The first breakpoint hit will be “Hello Nakul!” when the hit count is 4. To verify whether the hit is correct or not, you can either use the “Locals” window or the “Immediate” window (Go to Debug –> Windows –> Immediate or press Ctrl+Alt+I):

Hit Alt+F5 again. The next breakpoint to be hit will again be “Hello Nakul!”. Hit Alt + F5 again, and we will hit the “Hello World!” breakpoint and so on.

Searching for specific breakpoints – using Labels to your advantage

Go to Debug->Windows->Breakpoints or press Ctrl+Alt+B to launch the Breakpoints window.

While we only have 2 breakpoints in this session and it is quite easy to remember them, in production code, there might be tens of breakpoints and it might be difficult to remember each one. What’s more, out of all breakpoints, you might want to work with only the breakpoints that are related to a particular operation – an update to a given table, for example.

In the breakpoints window, take the time out to label each breakpoint carefully. You may want to use your labels such that each label identifies a particular group of operations in question – for example, a label can be – “Updating Production”, “Updating Sales Orders” and so on.

Notice the addition of a “Search” box in the Breakpoint window. The “Search” box allows us to search on a specific column or on all visible columns of the breakpoint window.

Choosing “All Visible” in the “In Column” drop-down, let’s type in “World” in the “Search” box and hit Enter. Notice that SSMS will take the other breakpoints off the list. Clearing the search results will bring them back.

Exporting Breakpoints

Now, let us see how to export breakpoints from one SSMS session to another.

Once the script file has been saved to any location of your choice, click on the “Export” button on the toolbar of the “Breakpoints” window

In the File->Save dialog, select a location and file name of your choice to export the breakpoints

Importing Breakpoints

Now that we have exported breakpoints to a file, let’s see how we can import them into another SSMS session.

Notice that the breakpoints are imported and applied successfully such that the IDE is now ready for debugging

Data Tips

Per MSDN, “DataTips are one of the most convenient tools for viewing information about the variables and objects in your program during debugging. When the debugger is in break mode, you can view the value of a variable within the current scope by placing the mouse pointer over the variable in a source window.”

I like to think of it as a very light-weight version of the Watch window. When debugging, almost any troubleshooter likes to be in full control – knowing exactly what is going on where. If a variable changes it’s value, it might be important because it may not be warranted and might produce incorrect results. Data Tips help us in being “aware” about our surroundings, and at times, in controlling the flow of execution.

Please note that to the best of my knowledge, Data Tips are available in all the flavours of Visual Studio 2010.

To Display A Data Tip

Start a debug session

However the mouse over the variable to be evaluated, a Data Tip appears

To Move, Pin and Unpin A Data Tip

Click the “pin” icon

The data-tip is now “pinned”

Drag the data tip to the desired location to move it

Hover over the data-pin and click the “pin” icon again to un-pin the data-tip

Adding Comments to a Data Tip

Click the “Expand” arrow on the data-tip

Add required comments in the edit box

Click anywhere on the “Canvas”

To Close all Data Tips

We have not one, but 3 distinct options to clear out the data-tips on a Microsoft SQL Server Query Editor window.

Option #1 – Debug Menu

Option #2 – The Data tip itself

Option #3 – Right-click the “indicator” column

Limitations

As with any enhancement, there are always things that can be improved upon after the fact. The only major limitation that I see with exporting & importing breakpoint is:

The name & location of the script file must be same as that when the breakpoints and data-tips are exported

Therefore, if when the breakpoints were exported, the script file was at “E:ScriptsBreakpoints.sql”, I cannot change it to be “E:DevelopmentBreakpoints.sql” for the import

Practice Exercises/How To…?

It’s time to practice! The practice exercises for the T-SQL debugger need some setup time, but are simple and easy.

Create the following stored procedure against the AdventureWorks2008 database: